The best thing you could say about this Blumarine show might be that it was more grounded than usual. From the opener of baby-pink biker shearling and flesh-toned leather trousers, the collection did its earnest best to evoke a real world, albeit an insistently candy-colored one. But it was a real world that was firmly lodged in the eighties. The huge rollneck with the color-coordinated cardigan, for instance, was an exaggeratedly ritzy take on the twinset. The big pink bathrobe? Well, that might be a concession to Hollywood wives. But it also suggested an ultimate comfort factor that stretched into flowing outerwear that was as cozy as a candlewick bedspread.

But the eighties also embodied another kind of exaggeration, and Molinari was right there with it. Her appetite for thigh-high pannier-draped skirts, splattered with flowers, spoke to an original Ungaro moment. So did the extreme pagoda-shouldered suits, boldly blouse-less. Quite where this sits in the contemporary fashion spectrum would be more of an enigma if Molinari hadn't been cheered to the rafters by her fiercely partisan Italian aficionados.